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The Energy Blog is where all topics relating to The Energy Revolution are presented. Increasingly, expensive oil, coal and global warming are causing an energy revolution by requiring fossil fuels to be supplemented by alternative energy sources and by requiring changes in lifestyle. Please contact me with your comments and questions. Further Information about me can be found HERE.

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November 12, 2005

Nanopowders Could Revolutionize Electrodes

QuantumSphere makes such products as nano-nickel/cobalt alloy nanopowder that behaves like platinum but is 80 percent cheaper. Since platinum is 40 percent of the cost of small batteries and fuel cells, QuantumSphere's alloy could greatly reduce the cost of batteries for laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and hearing aids. Most of QuantumSphere's 11 employees are scientists. So far, the company has grown without venture capital. It has started selling its products this year and could possibly break even in 2006. QuantumSphere was recently selected for a 2005 Technology Innovation of the Year award by research organization Frost & Sullivan.

QuantumSphere claims to be the leading manufacturer of metallic nanopowders for markets demanding exacting material quality and performance. In their words: "Our exclusive manufacturing process provides consistent and narrow particle size distribution, low levels of agglomeration and impurities, a custom-tailored oxide shell thickness, and the highest purity metallic nanopowders on the market that are easier to transport and handle. The company accomplishes this without compromising its commitment to the environment and the community. No other company offers these performance advantages."

They see their applications as including:

Electrodes in batteries, fuel cells and water hydrolysis/hydrogen production, where huge surface area and greater surface energy combined equals orders of magnitude Increase in reactive performance.

The metal vaporizes, and the vapor is cooled by inert gas and condenses into droplets of liquid metal that further cool to solid nanospheres. Oxygen is then added to the gas stream containing the spheres to develop an oxide shell. The nanopowder is collected and conveyed into metal containers for packaging in inert gas.

Tweaking the metal flux, chamber pressure, temperature, and gas flow changes the characteristics of the particles. For example the size of the nanoparticles can be changed by controlling the laminar flow region around the chaotic metal vapor zone which allows the growing the nanoparticles to the desired diameter prior to gas quenching. The result is a uniform distribution of controlled particle sizes. By multiplying the number of controlled laminar quench zones around the heating elements within the vacuum chamber, the process can be scaled to meet the output demand. The process is fully automated; running 24/7 continuously it requires no supervision and little down time for reactor maintenance.

The process can produce spheres of metal that are incredibly small. For certain applications particles have been made that are only two nanometers across, consisting of just a few hundred atoms.

QuantumSphere has three process reactors in operation and a fourth one scheduled to come on line in December 2005. Two small units are dedicated to R & D, the third is capable of producing a few pounds per day and the new system will be capable of producing between two and four hundred pounds per month depending on the material being produced.

One fundamental issue of fuel cells is the reliance on platinum as catalyst. For a cost comparison, finely divided platinum (currently $75.00/gram in bulk) costs approximately 5 times as much as QuantumSphere’s nano-Ni/Co alloy catalyst (currently $15.00/gram). This translates into a large reduction in total device cost. Implementation of this new technology incorporating QSI-nano™ Ni/Co alloy in the alternative energy sector has the potential to dramatically accelerate commercialization of these micro devices

The process itself is an adaptation of the gas phase condensation method combined with proprietary trade secrets and intellectual property.

Gas phase condensation, one of the original nano- particle technologies, has been developed into a continuous, fully automated manufacturing process. Metal wire is fed into the vacuum chamber and melted on inter-metallic composite boats heated by electricity to a very high temperature.

It certainly sounds like they can reduce the cost of fuel cells enough to be used. Their savings should be greatest when there is a large production volume. I saw an article that RPI had developed a robot to assemble fuel cells, which should further reduce costs. There have been enough developments in fuel cell technology in the last year that there price should come down significantly, but for vehicles they are so expensive that its hard to tell how close they are to being practical.